


White Flag

by sixpences



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancerarc, Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixpences/pseuds/sixpences
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a building burning. Post-ep for 4x22, 'Elegy'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Flag

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aloysia Virgata](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Aloysia+Virgata).



> With thanks to Amal Nahurriyeh for beta-fu, and to Erinya for allowing me to pick her brain.
> 
> Originally written for xf_santa 2009.

_The furies are at home  
in the mirror; it is their address.  
Even the clearest water,  
if deep enough can drown._

_Never think to surprise them.  
Your face approaching ever  
so friendly is the white flag  
they ignore. _

_There is no truce with the furies._  
\- R.S. Thomas

 

The heater in Mulder's car is on the fritz, coughing out hot air at apparently random intervals and retreating to a low, useless rumble in between, griping underneath the sound of the engine. It's late April and not so cold as to really need it, even at night, but he fiddles with the dial and grimaces at it in between intersections.

In the passenger seat, Scully is looking out the window at the obviously fascinating sidewalk. With only the light from the dash she seems to almost disappear into the darkness of the car's interior, her long black coat neat and closed around her. She has hardly said a word to him since he picked her up from some faceless parking lot barely four blocks from the psychiatric centre, and he's rapidly losing faith in his ability to hold a conversation with her that doesn't slide inexorably down towards "I'm fine, Mulder" like a car on black ice.

She is absolutely fucking not _fine_ and there is nothing whatsoever he can do about it.

He shifts in his seat, adjusting the leg of his pants. There are a few other cars on the road, heading late across the city, and the ubiquitous dull orange urban light bleeds upwards into the sky, scribbled across with dim clouds. The weight of the day, the case, their passive-aggressive little fight in the hallway, press on his temples like the start of a really vicious headache.

When he'd picked up the phone he'd imagined for a moment she was calling to... not to apologise, because he knew she wouldn't, but to at least say something that wasn't guarded with inch-long thorns, something he might be able to understand at last. That she'd called him at all, even with her car broken down at this time of night, was perhaps some kind of concession, but a meagre one at best. She still had her head turned away from him, watching the darkness go past. Mulder looked up and caught his own reflection in the windshield, thin and almost colourless in the curved glass.

The orange glow of light pollution seems to have been getting brighter the last few blocks, and ahead he can see a line of brake lights. Mulder curses under his breath.

"There's a fire," Scully says, the sound of her voice startling him. "I can see the smoke now. I think they've closed the road."

"Shit." Mulder starts to slow the car down, and notices a police officer heading towards them along the sidewalk. Scully winds her window down as he pulls over to the curb.

"Good evening ma'am," the woman says, bending over towards the car, one hand braced on the roof. "I'm afraid we're redirecting traffic hereabouts, are you and your husband headed very far?"

"Georgetown," Scully answers, and after a moment, a moment that could almost have been hesitation, she pulls her badge out of her coat pocket. "We're federal agents, do you need any assistance?"

The cop's eyebrows twitch slightly, but she only shakes her head. "Everything's under control here, we're just making sure the area's clear. You might want to double back and head for the interstate if you need to get to Georgetown, this isn't clearing up anytime soon. Drive safe now, Agents." She pats the top of the car and steps away, her reflective vest gleaming in the headlights

"Shit," Mulder says again, and fights the urge to look away from Scully now the cop has gone, waiting for her to wind the window back up and turn, gravely, towards him. Low light only amplifies how horribly pale she's become in the last few months, shadows creeping into her face that were never there before.

She is slipping away like water, like slow fractures crawling through glass. He swallows hard against the lump in his throat.

"You hungry at all, Scully?"

She frowns. "It's almost one in the morning."

He shrugs, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible. "I haven't really eaten since lunch. It's going to take a while to get across the river anyhow, I thought we might as well go get some food."

She doesn't answer at first, turning to stare out of the windshield. There's smoke climbing into the sky overhead, lit from underneath by the fire in harsh colours, peaking over the tall buildings like a crown.

"If that's what you really want to do," she says eventually.

 

A few blocks away there's a little deli still open, which he thinks is probably preferable to dragging her to McDonalds or IHOP for the umpteenth time. The blue neon sign in the window promises 'Freshly-made San--iches'. When they get out of the car he can still see the eerily glowing smoke rising over the buildings, diffusing into the high clouds and the darkness.

Scully holds her coat closed with one hand but doesn't button it. She walks next to him but just far enough away that he can't touch her without making it seem contrived, something neither of them could pretend not to notice, so he keeps his hands in his pockets although they aren't cold. She's still in step with him, that strange way she never seems to need to walk any faster to catch him up.

When they push the door open the skinny, sandy-haired guy behind the counter looks up from his newspaper and makes a little harrumphing grunt that Mulder supposes is a greeting. There's a little line of stools along a bar in front of the window, the furthest of which is occupied by an elderly man in a fedora with an ice cream soda in front of him, holding a cigarette loosely between his fingers and staring out at the bright, lit end gleaming back at him in the glass.

Scully purses her lips and starts examining one of the printed menus stacked on top of the counter. Mulder glances idly over her shoulder at it before leaning forward propped on one elbow to try and get the attendant's attention. He had not really been hungry at all when he suggested this, despite only having had a rather miserable banana since they ate lunch, but even under cold fluorescent lights the sliced beef and steel bowls of hummus and coleslaw under the curved, gleaming glass look suddenly appetising.

"There's no hot food," the attendant says, and glances up again. "Don't usually see you suits at this time of night."

Mulder is somewhat impressed by his ability to infuse such disdain in a casual remark. The man turns a gauchely headlined page and Mulder realises he's reading the _Weekly World News_.

"That's an interesting paper."

The attendant glances up again, looking defensive. "They print a lot of crap, but not as much as the rest. The truth's a terrible thing to most people, you know."

Mulder glances to his right, awaiting at least the customary sigh, but Scully seems fascinated by the prospect of three different kinds of bread. He clears his throat.

"Well, I guess so. Uh, I'll have beef and horseradish, white bread, coleslaw on the side. And a lemonade."

Scully looks up briefly at the attendant. "Salami and lettuce on whole wheat, Diet Coke," she says crisply, and puts the menu back on the counter to start rummaging in her purse. Mulder quickly slides a ten-dollar bill over as the attendant puts down his paper and pulls on a pair of disposable gloves.

"I don't mind paying, Mulder." She's pulling her wallet out from underneath whatever it is women fill their purses with, her keys hooked on to one finger to keep her from dropping them. It takes him a moment to realise they're on that lame-ass keychain he bought her for her birthday.

She notices him looking and something softens almost imperceptibly in her face, and she gives him a little smile, a real one. "I _did_ need a new keychain."

He forces a laugh. "Probably the dumbest present you got this year, though."

Scully makes a resigned face. "Charlie and his wife sent me socks. A tin of shortbread, and tartan socks. It might take a while before the novelty Scottish gifts start to get old."

"They moved all the way over there?"

"A few months ago, didn't I tell you?" She wrinkles her nose in a frown, still sorting through the cash in her wallet. "Ros's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's two years ago; they wanted the kids to get some quality time with her." The 'before' is audibly silent.

It is clearly the most stupid thing he could possibly say, when she's been smiling and _talking_ to him and they're both acting cheerfully oblivious, but it stumbles out of his mouth anyway. "Do they know about...?" He can't finish the sentence. It's far too intimate a thing to say in public, too secret and hidden and silent to speak aloud.

She turns her head to look at the attendant heaping lettuce leaves on top of sliced salami. "No. I asked Mom not to tell Bill and Tara either. There's no need for any of them to know."

He wants to disagree so violently that it hurts, but he's already pushed her too far this evening and the lines of fracture are more visible than ever. He puts out his hand to close her wallet.

"I'll pay for the sandwiches, Scully. You can owe me one."

 

The lemonade is cheap, the bad kind of cheap. Mulder takes another unhappy sip and, glancing down the bar at the old man, wishes he had ordered an ice cream soda instead. He scoops up a little plastic forkful of coleslaw. Scully is eating her sandwich with obvious relish, even picking at the little handful of potato chips that came on the side, and it makes him feel weirdly gratified. Without him she'd probably have just gone home and eaten a yogurt or something. He has never actually looked inside her refrigerator but he suspects it would be full of things like tomatoes and yoghurt and 1% milk.

Around the back of the fluorescent sign he can still see smoke climbing into the sky, though maybe it's a little less ferocious looking than it was before. Scully wiggles a chip back and forth on its edge.

"I hope they got the building evacuated in time," she says, following his line of sight. "It must be terrible to lose your home like that."

"I'd lose my whole video collection," he says around the mouthful of coleslaw. A moth flaps aimlessly against the window. "Hard to recover from that kind of tragedy."

She goes very quiet again, that strange Scully-quietness that she somehow extends to at least a two-foot radius around herself, and he can only hear the sound of the attendant turning another page of his newspaper, the high, numbing buzz of the lights. When Scully is silent he finds himself noticing everything else about her more vividly, as if to compensate; the swift, bright snap of her hair, the muttering hunch of her shoulders dressed in orchestral black.

When she touches his wrist very lightly it's a little startling. Her hand is pale, her fingernails small and precise.

"You'd survive it, Mulder. You're good at that."

He doesn't want to look at her. He doesn't want to see whatever false beatific expression she's constructed in order to say that to him with the horrible other meaning that's lurking underneath. He wants to shout at her for sitting there fucking _dying_ and trying to make him feel better about it when there couldn't be anything more unspeakably wrong.

She saw the fourth victim. He'd burst blithely into her apartment just a few hours ago babbling about visions of mortality and she'd just put on the suit and that sombre black coat and come out after him as if he hadn't shoved his foot far enough into his mouth to choke on it. The horror of it is crawling around under his clothes, prickling the hair on his arms.

"The doctor really did tell me that everything is okay at the moment, Mulder," she says quietly, retracting her hand and biting into a potato chip with a loud crunch. He chances a quick look at her and whatever expression she had has faded to something slightly sad as she looks down at her half-eaten sandwich.

"I believe you. I believed you back there." That's not entirely true, but he was so selfishly angry with her when they argued in the hallway that he doesn't want to revisit it.

She's fiddling with a stray bit of lettuce on her plate. Her reflection in the window looks pale and defeated, a white flag. "I just... I need you to be prepared for what might happen."

"I won't accept that..." He swallows. "I won't accept that it's inevitable."

"I know you won't." She hunches her shoulders forward slightly. Over both their mirrored heads the smoke is still climbing into the sky. "Finish your sandwich, Mulder, it's late."

There has to be something he can do. He remembers the sudden emptiness of the house after Samantha was taken, the huge spaces that she used to occupy. He remembers the long, slow slide into silence.

This is not, _not_ the same (he should write that on his hand in permanent marker), but at the same time it is, he thinks, looking down at his coleslaw-smeared plate. The same lies behind secrets behind lies, the same men in dark back rooms who took Samantha and ripped his life in two did this to Scully too. There has to be something left he can use against them, some fact or weapon buried in his past that he only needs to exhume.

Scully crunches on another potato chip, looking blankly ahead out of the window where the light falls over the sidewalk and into the road. Mulder picks up his sandwich and takes a determined bite. Streets away the building spits more smoke into the sky, the fire roaring at the walls as the structure starts to crack.

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the Tarot:  
> _XVI. The Tower  
> It sometimes takes destruction to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built._


End file.
